A Hobby blog about wargaming, miniature painting, board gaming and other musings.
Why magpie, I hear you ask? Simple: I'm constantly being distracted by new shiny things. Come in, make yourself at home and feel free to leave a comment. Caw!

Sunday, 29 January 2012

It's long overdue. Time for me to clear out some hobby space. My hobby storage area is littered with the remains of failed projects. Not surprising, for a gaming magpie like myself.

To make a start, I've listed some 20mm scale WWII British tommies on eBay. Sadly, 20mm ended up being one scale too many for me. I found it an unsatisfying middle ground between the pleasure of painting 28mm and a scale where massed battles are doable with limited space and time.

If anyone is interested (Ray? Angry?), you can find them here: For sale

Of course, any monies raised will be ploughed back into the hobby, I'm eyeing up some spiffing 28mm vietnam which are 'coming soon' from eBob.
Must...resist...new...period..

I was pleasantly surprised today to receive a package postmarked Hawaii. Sent by Bob Murch of Pulp Figures, who is not only sending out packages while on holiday, but included a personalised note too. Best of all, I only ordered them a week ago.

Excellent service and fantastically characterful miniatures. Highly, highly recommended as a retailer and from our exchange of emails he seems a thoroughly nice bloke to boot.

Thursday, 26 January 2012

These were my fourth challenge entry, eight 28mm Artizan designs WWII Sikh infantry. Really nice models, bought for the officer with pistol drawn, who will be another Pulp character. The others can serve as Indian military or police allies/antagonists. The joy of Pulp is the opportunity it offers to buy random inspiring models and finding an excuse to use them later!
These weren't that exciting to paint, mostly just variants of khaki/beige. But they came out pretty well. Te only thin, I'm not totally happy with is the skin, I think it came out too dark. Suggestions for a good method for Indian skin will be warmly welcomed. I tend to still use GW paints, much as I've gone off them as a company their paints are what I'm used to. Also, they have improved the line with new additions, their Devlan Mud and Gryphonne Sepia washes come in particularly handy.

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Time has run away from me, I meant to post this last week but haven't had chance. Here was my third entry to the Analogue Hobbies painting challenge, fifteen Mahadist Ansar. These will be used for Pulp gaming as jungle or island natives, or even as central Avrican tribes, perhaps!
Although bought as a cheaper option to metals, I thought these were great figures which really show the Perry's grasp of anatomy. I used the painting guide from the Perry website to get the dark skin. Think it came out really well.
I submitted my fourth entry today, so maybe I'll also post it here this month!

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

But you'll have to wait until it appears on the Analogue Hobbies blog...

;-)

I also wandered into my LGS today, I hadn't been in since I moved to London. It seems very well stocked with interesting minis and hobby supplies all apparently sold below RRP. Although I'm mostly interested in historical gaming, I could be tempted by Malifaux or Dystopian Wars as a small side-project. New Yar's resolution to investigate their games nights and get a demo or two in.

Monday, 9 January 2012

A bit late, but these were my first two entries to the Analogue hobbies Painting Challenge.

A 28mm Spanish clergyman who has been given the name 'Padre Padilla' (thanks Juan!) and the second half of the 'Regimento Voluntarios de la Patria', a Spanish Peninsular War Junta regiment. These will fight alongside my British and were picked last year as a welcome change from painting Redcoats. I had a spare box of Victrix plastic French, which appear to fit the bill very well, see the leftmost figure here:

I wasn't hugely worried about getting the uniform exactly right, but I think they've come out pretty close. They were deliberately made to look a bit more ragged, both in terms of the mixed posing (altough I was restrained by only having a half-box), covered/uncovered shakos as well as varying the colour of the trousers, mis-matched packs and so on. Perhaps more realistic for a unit on campaign, but different tro my more uniform redcoats....

Credit also to Aki at Too Much Lead as I shamelessly copied his idea for using Victrix French to represent this regiment.

They have no colours yet and one of the standards has snapped. None of my Napoleonics have Colours (the shame!), but I plan on getting them all in one go from Flag Dude, at Salute in London again in April. Hopefully he will be able to provide something suitable for my Spanish units as well as British, I've not actually checked yet...

Thirteen 28mm miniatures were painted for the challenge, but I've here is a shot of the full 25-strong unit.

Tuesday, 3 January 2012

To my mind, having beautifully painted miniatures is only half the battle (excuse the pun). You also need great terrain to really put on a good spectacle. For many years I've been fortunate as my brother is a highly creative individual who excelled at making innovative and attractive terrain. However, for the Napoleonic Peninsular project, I offered to try my hand at the terrain, with varying degrees of success to date.

One thing I struggled with was trees. The usual wargaming trees just do not look right. Everything I found in model railway shows was either too high a price, required considerable assembly, or was not durable or not realistic- looking enough. I guess the flora you associate with the Peninsular is a bit niche for most major producers of model trees.

Last year I discovered Realistic Modelling Services, who had a huge range of different model trees at a reasonable price. And here is my first order 5 of their Olive trees, in two different sizes. I actually bought 6 but one hid in the box! Show with a 28mm Highlander for scale.

It is always a bit of a gamble using an unknown web company, but I really like these, they look the part, came painted and ready for use and the basing looks nice - can request them to be based for wargaming rather than railway modelling at no extra charge. Better still, they came in at under £4 each, including postage.
Verdict: highly recommended!

Sunday, 1 January 2012

The new year already brings a milestone - I noticed my little blog has hit 200 pageviews. Still not exactly Earth-shattering, but things are noticeably ramping up as the last hundred came in the last month, whereas the first 100 took 8 months or so.

So, cheers for reading all and thanks to my merry band of followers!

Anyway, normal service will be resumed soon, when I'll have some fresh minis to post up...